Farrakhan Shegog says the rise, destruction and resilience of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s historic Black Wall Street, known as the Greenwood District, offer a model for rebuilding Black wealth and opportunity in North St. Louis County.
That vision drew hundreds of people to the Historic Wellston Loop on Saturday for the 11th annual Black Wall Street 314 festival. Despite overcast skies and occasional rain, vendors lined the streets with colorful tents selling everything from handmade skin care products and Afrocentric clothing to jewelry and food. Children chased giant bubbles while music filled the corridor and families gathered to celebrate Black entrepreneurship and community.
Asked what Tulsa’s Greenwood District and Wellston have in common, Shegog doesn’t hesitate.
“Resiliency.”
“We are connected by the resiliency of the people,” said Shegog, president of Young Voices with Action. “And it’s time to refocus on our history of resiliency and ingenuity to build our own economic and social futures.”
“It’s called ‘Black Wall Street 314’ because Greenwood in Tulsa set the standard of Black thriving communities across the country,” Shegog said. “We’re showcasing to the St. Louis community that the value of circulating the Black dollar can have tremendous impact on housing, politics, health care — everything that is dictated by how we spend and harness the Black dollar.”
The festival featured Black-owned businesses, live entertainment, a community parade, fashion shows and conversations about public safety, entrepreneurship, youth programming, homeownership and community development.
For Shegog, the event’s message begins with history.
After Emancipation, African Americans established prosperous communities across Oklahoma, including Greenwood. The Tulsa neighborhood became known as “Black Wall Street” because of its concentration of Black-owned businesses, churches, schools and civic organizations.
On May 31, 1921, white mobs destroyed much of Greenwood during one of the deadliest racial massacres in American history.
Although their histories differ, Greenwood and Wellston followed similar trajectories.
“Greenwood and Wellston share another commonality: destruction,” Shegog said. “One city by a deadly riot and the other by white flight and ensuing economic death.”
Once a thriving industrial city anchored by employers such as Wagner Electric Co., Wellston also boasted a vibrant commercial district along Easton Avenue, now Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. White flight in the 1960s and the departure of major manufacturers in the 1980s eroded the city’s tax base, population and economic vitality.
Shegog believes both communities demonstrate that recovery begins with local investment.
“Black Wall Street 314 offers a fuller conversation about public safety, one rooted not only in response, but in prevention through opportunity,” he said.
For vendor Dawn Wise, whose skin care business operates under the name “Prettii,” the festival represents more than a marketplace.
“I love the empowerment aspect of it, and I feel we deserve it,” Wise said. “It’s been a long time coming. There’s so much Black ideas, Black creativity, Black entrepreneurship and Black intelligence that’s been dismissed. So this is an amazing thing to do and it’s our time.”
Festival attendees also learned about Young Voices with Action’s planned $13 million, 31,000-square-foot Easton @ Wellston Loop mixed-use development. The project will include residential housing, retail businesses, community gathering space and the organization’s future headquarters. In May, the organization secured $3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding for the project.
The festival also comes as Wellston is seeing additional investment.
Earlier this month, the St. Louis County Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority announced an agreement to sell the 28-acre Wellston Industrial Park on Ogden Avenue to THO Investments for $1 million. Officials estimate the project could create at least 50 jobs, with the potential for more.
The authority also reached an agreement with McBride Homes to develop a proposed 178-home subdivision on dozens of vacant lots in the Lulu Heights neighborhood.
Wellston Mayor Nathaniel Griffin said both projects are part of “a much larger plan to rebuild our tax base, strengthen our neighborhoods and create opportunity for current and future residents. From housing to commercial corridors to public infrastructure, the City has multiple active projects underway.”
Shegog said he welcomes the investment but hopes redevelopment also includes meaningful community engagement and opportunities for current residents to share in the benefits.
Ultimately, he said, Black Wall Street 314 is about more than remembering Greenwood’s past. It is about applying its lessons to Wellston’s future.
“The goal of Black Wall Street 314 is to promote economic freedom through Black collective involvement and investment,” Shegog said. “It’s one thing to say you’re free, but it’s another thing to have the economic willpower and the economic resources to be able to sustain that freedom.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.